# Today, I am a man.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 12, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089 "2010-08-12T22:10:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/1 "2010-08-12T22:10:36Z")
Officially, a middle-aged man. I know this, because I saw a medical professional today. First visit to this particular type of professional in 18 years. And he dropped the bomb on me. Diagnosed, and prescribed. I then went next door, and made arrangements to have the prescription filled. There is no acceptable treatment for my condition, so here I am to contemplate my fate.
The prescription?
It’s…grim.
Sure you wanna know?
Well, ok. Guess there’s no point in denying it.
Today, I ordered my first pair of bifocals. Y’all get the Hell off my lawn, and turn that damn shakey-booty music down.
Harrumph.
---
### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/2 "2010-08-12T22:14:10Z")
[Presbyopia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia), eh?
Women get it, too.
---
### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/3 "2010-08-12T22:14:18Z")
The good news is bifocals are the bomb for keeping the wind out of your eyes in that new red convertible you are getting. Just make sure the toupee is glued on well (I’ll have my guy call your guy).
---
### Author:  [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/4 "2010-08-12T22:17:19Z")
Shesh I read the title and came here expecting to read of some glorious conquest or action. Instead you’re just getting old:dubious:
Ah well, welcome to the club.
Note to mods: we really need a beer smiley.
---
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/5 "2010-08-12T22:21:49Z")
**Oak** , I got my first pair of bifocals when I was 15 or so. It’s cool. But if I that doesn’t make you feel better, I recommend a four-part therapy:
1. Get the scrip filled with the hidden line-bifocals, so nobody will know.
2. Track down some guy who beats his wife, children, girlfriend, or boyfriend, and smack him around for no fewer than three (3) minutes.
3. Go into the woods and kill a deer.
4. Okay, actually I only have three ideas. I thought it was more, but I’m old.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/6 "2010-08-12T22:23:32Z")
I refuse to get bifocals, so I just grew longer arms.
---
### Author:  [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/7 "2010-08-12T22:27:11Z")
I don’t get it. I was a teen when I got my first bifocals. Is this something common with older people too?
---
### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/8 "2010-08-12T22:47:14Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> **Oak** , I got my first pair of bifocals when I was 15 or so. It’s cool. But if I that doesn’t make you feel better, I recommend a four-part therapy:
>
> 1. Get the scrip filled with the hidden line-bifocals, so nobody will know.
> 2. Track down some guy who beats his wife, children, girlfriend, or boyfriend, and smack him around for no fewer than three (3) minutes.
> 3. Go into the woods and kill a deer.
> 4. Okay, actually I only have three ideas. I thought it was more, but I’m old.
1 is covered. Ordered the hidden line type.
2 would be fun, and I have a couple of candidates in mine. Unfortunately, their attorney would probably object. However, I did recently force a wife-beater to turn over his brand new F-150 with power everything to his soon to be ex-wife. He’ll be tooling around town in the old and battered Volkswagon, because the wife can’t drive a stick shift. The look on his face as the Judge gave her ruling was absolutely delicious.
3–not so much. Never have been a deer hunter. Got no moral objections, and I like venison, just other things I’d rather do. Also, hunting deer in August is a crime in this state.
4–Coulda been worse. I coulda gone to an M.D., and had to kill him when he suggested a rectal exam. Woulda been inconvenient to miss work long enough to quash the indictment by telling the Judge how I had no choice but to kill him under the circumstances. This particular Judge being of the old school, I’m sure he’d understand.
---
### Author:  [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/9 "2010-08-12T22:55:05Z")
…
---
### Author:  [@Cinebar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinebar)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/10 "2010-08-12T22:55:25Z")
Eh…I thought we were going to find out the prescription was for Viagra. :smack:
Bi-focals?
My very first pair of eyeglasses at the ripe old age of 14 were bi-focals. :rolleyes:
---
### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/11 "2010-08-12T22:56:47Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#):
>
> I don’t get it. I was a teen when I got my first bifocals. Is this something common with older people too?
The part you are not understanding is I am a manly man. I snack on danger and dine on death. I go places to kick ass and chew gum, and I don’t even bring any gum. I’ll fight a buzz saw if it pisses me off.
Needing bifocals is a sign of frailty. It implies that there is something out there with an ass I can’t kick. This is…undignified.
If we lived in a civilized society, my clan would paint our faces for war, and I would lead us in battle one last time. When I fell, the buxom blonde on the winged horse would come to take me home.
Sadly, in these barbaric times, I must somehow cope with no longer being invincible. This is…not pleasing…for one with a warrior’s soul.
---
### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/12 "2010-08-12T23:16:48Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> The part you are not understanding is I am a manly man. I snack on danger and dine on death. I go places to kick ass and chew gum, and I don’t even bring any gum. I’ll fight a buzz saw if it pisses me off.
>
> Needing bifocals is a sign of frailty. It implies that there is something out there with an ass I can’t kick. This is…undignified.
>
> If we lived in a civilized society, my clan would paint our faces for war, and I would lead us in battle one last time. When I fell, the buxom blonde on the winged horse would come to take me home.
>
> Sadly, in these barbaric times, I must somehow cope with no longer being invincible. This is…not pleasing…for one with a warrior’s soul.
Then you must do as my father did, when he found that trifocals and cataracts began interfering with his extreme sports hobbies. Your eyes have betrayed you, and must be taught the error of their ways. Have their lenses pulverized with ultrasound and sucked out with a machine, then replaced with artificial lenses.
(Or you could just deal with it for a while, and get a lens replacement if and when things get much worse.)
---
### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/13 "2010-08-12T23:17:06Z")
> [@Cinebar](#):
>
> Eh…I thought we were going to find out the prescription was for Viagra. :smack:
If the eye doc prescribed Viagra, I’d probably want to see somebody else. If a regular doc prescribed Viagra, I might have started a thread looking for lady doper volunteers to…um…test the dosage.
😃
---
### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/14 "2010-08-12T23:32:03Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#):
>
> I don’t get it. I was a teen when I got my first bifocals. Is this something common with older people too?
Yup. The aforementioned presbyopia comes with age, with the lens becoming less flexible. Even people who’ve never worn glasses will probably encounter this. You almost certainly have bifocals for a different eye disorder.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/15 "2010-08-13T00:18:08Z")
I am not too far away from getting bifocals, I suspect. I nead reading glasses when I have my contacts in, but I don’t when I have my regular glasses on - at least, I don’t yet.
---
### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/16 "2010-08-13T00:21:49Z")
I empathize. I suspect that between coming up on my 42nd birthday and the diabetes, I’ll probably need glasses soon. Particularly if I keep using the Klondike game on my BlackBerry.
---
### Author:  [@MissGypsy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissGypsy)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/17 "2010-08-13T00:30:05Z")
Heh. I had bifocals when I was 9. It’s not a terribly cool look for a 3rd grader, let me tell you, but at least I could see.
But last year, my husband finally admitted his vision had changed and went to the eye doc for the first time in his 46 years of life. Wham, trifocals. He was not pleased.
---
### Author:  [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/18 "2010-08-13T05:51:14Z")
Ahem, I don’t need glasses. And I got my eyes checked and everything last June. Then I turned 40, and within months my arms have become rather short. Can’t read fine print unless I’m in the next room.
“Cheaters”. Not glasses. Certainly not bifocals. I will have a pair around cause um, they are funky. And my arms are too darn short. And fonts are smaller than they used to be. So, uh yeah.
Get off my lawn, pull yer pants up, and turn down that music.
---
### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/19 "2010-08-13T06:16:29Z")
Call me gullible, but I was worried for a second.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2010, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089/20 "2010-08-13T06:37:11Z")
Meh. I got bifocals at 12. At 34, I got a prescription for Metamucil. At this rate, I’ll be using a walker by the time I’m 40.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/today-i-am-a-man/550089.md?page=2)